Dr Harun Yilmaz writes a series of articles which explains how World War 1 influenced Azerbaijan (link is external). Dr Yilmaz explains how the deteriorating conditions of the Great War and the two consecutive revolutions in Russia in 1917 forced the first school for Muslim girls with secular and modern curriculum in the Muslim world to close its doors in Spring 1918. Ironically, the same conditions of the war and revolutions gave birth to the first republic and the first multi-party parliament of a predominantly Muslim and Turkic population in 1918.